A bigger outing

Grandma: You said all the photos from your trip to Paris with Papa decades ago were
lost by the photo processing folks way back then. I've edited this picture, taken all of
4 hours ago, to look maybe a little like one that you'd have in an album from that trip!  :)

This morning we left Thouars and made the 4.5 hour drive to Paris. (There's a faster route using better highways, but the roundtrip tolls on that would be at least $60, so we took the most direct route possible without tolls.) Jesse is meeting with someone for HOPE this weekend here in Paris, and we decided we might as well make a small trip out of it for the entire family.

The drive itself was overall smooth sailing with a nice picnic en route but was bookended by anxiety: The first 45 minutes on the road involved an inauspicious, terrible meltdown on William's part so we all were a bit frayed from the start. Then upon our approach to our hotel in a mind-bogglingly confusing array of roads and traffic in the heart of La Defense, we (a) got incredibly, incredibly lost and (b) had the engine of our new little car overheat! Gah. Before (a) and (b) took place, we got within 20 feet of the hotel entrance but couldn't enter the drive from where we were, and—I exaggerate not—it took us a full hour to eventually get back to that spot. At one point we ended up in a tunnel so long that we feared we would pop up in another country altogether. But to all of our relief, we made it safe and sound in the end...before anyone had a potty accident (which grew to a legit concern as time waxed on, and not just for the kiddos!!)...and with the car back to rights too (although we're not quite sure what happened there...will of course be keeping an eagle eye on it).

After checking in and dropping off our things, we turned around and headed straight for the metro. We decided to spend the evening at the Eiffel Tower, of course!

None of us has ever been to Paris, so this was a magical first stop for all of us. We walked all around and enjoyed, then we headed off to find a pizza for dinner, which we toted back to the Champ de Mars under the Eiffel Tower to enjoy picnic-style. 

Soon evening gave way to dusk, which in turn gave way to dark.

We saw the tower light up and loved the sparkle effect that happens at the top of the hour.

We gave the carousel a miss for the night since we knew we'd be hard pressed to be back by 10 p.m. as it was, awfully late for the boys, but we'll hit up one or two tomorrow for sure. 

And as a last note: Both boys spent the 2 euros apiece that they had brought, with Jesse helping them haggle for their souvenirs! William got a tiny snow globe (haggled down from 3 euros) and Josiah got a little Eiffel tower (haggled down from 4 euros, plus a little keychain thrown in).  They were positively triumphant over their purchases and deals!

An outing

On Friday, we traded in the loaner because our "new" car was ready, and off we went on the first of what hopefully will be many little day trips this year. We headed to Chateau de Goulaine, just over an hour away. Why there, when the number of chateaux within reasonable driving distance numbers in the many hundreds? Because it houses a butterfly aviary, of course! One William Henry James has been obsessed with butterflies for a year now. He has added "j'aime les papillons" to his tiny French vocabulary.

The moat and marshy area around the castle was brilliant green, being topped with the thinnest layer of algae. Throwing pebbles in was fun, as a little circle of black would open up then zip closed again in a split second. The picture below isn't great, but ducks were paddling along with their heads down, beaks wide open—eating away as they lazily paddled. So funny! We imagined it would be like swimming in a chocolate river for us.  :)


In the castle itself, we could only go through four rooms, and only as part of a tour, and of course the tour was in French. But with the help of a small English guidebook, we understand that the place is nearly 1000 years old and has been inhabited by members of the Goulaine family almost that entire time (yes, still today). At various times, the family operated somewhat as peace brokers between the various kingdoms nearby.


Onsite there also is a museum about LU cookies and biscuits, which have been a staple on French shop shelves since the late 1800s (not to mention elsewhere in Europe, although I think now they're owned by Nabisco, officially). The company has a century long tradition of hiring great artists to paint pictures for their packaging and advertising, and the museum was full of this art—which ranged from cute illustrations to rather grand paintings.

Here is their iconic "The Little Schoolboy" — alongside a less iconic rendition of our own slightly bigger schoolboy!


Of course the butterflies were the main attraction. It's a wonder I sought out this destination given my quasi-phobia of flappy things. Spending time in a hot, humid, wing-filled enclosure is the stuff of my nightmares...  But I pulled it together because, well, the sacrifice of motherhood, blah, blah, blah. And I have to admit that the butterflies really were wonderful (as long as they stayed still!). There were hundreds in there, some as much as 8 inches across and quite exotic.

 

Signs everywhere admonished against touching the butterflies, although it was fine if they landed on you of their own volition. (But: not okay if they landed on me personally—perish the thought! I stayed in perpetual motion as a deterrent...)

Poor William. Our resident butterfly-adorer. He was so good about not chasing or capturing the butterflies (tears were shed and a tantrum was initiated over this limitation as we prepared him the previous day), but we couldn't for the life of us get a butterfly to flutter onto him. He was desperate. They landed on Jesse and Josiah several times, tried to land on me (gah!) more than once, but no dice for William. 

He stayed stock still for AGES. Jesse and Josiah's expressions here perhaps convey just how long we waited in that hot, tropical room... 

At the point of the photo below, we'd positioned him practically inside a flowering shrub and had rubbed flowers all over his clothes and hair! Even other visitors were waiting with bated breath, each of us mentally urging and willing the crazy creatures to land on the poor child. We'd hold our breath when one would come close, then let out a collective sigh of exasperation when it fluttered past. 

Eventually I exited the room, having long surpassed my limit of heat, humidity, and wings. Jesse stayed on with him another 15 minutes or so, until—hooray!—it happened.  :)  But no photo.

In the end, I think it's safe to say that a grand time was had by all. We look forward to many more chateaux in our future!

Everyday lessons

William, after his own everyday lesson in taking down the laundry.

Our days these first two weeks have been packed with milestones that are simultaneously momentous and mundane. They've been big deals to us, but it hasn't felt entirely blog-worthy to say, "Hooray! Car insurance!"  Then again, the experiences of everyday are what will really impact us this year. So for those who want a feel for our day-to-day experience, here's a run-down of a few lessons we've been learning so far:

- Paperwork is the real king of France. Almost every person we work with (at the bank, the town hall, the insurance company, the car dealership) half laughs while filling out the umpteenth form, "The French, we love papers!"  Often getting one paper requires visiting several other places first to get other papers and official stamps. To buy the car required getting proof of insurance, which required getting proof of residence, which required proof of our lease, which required a special stamp from the town hall...  (And some of those steps had their own domino effects, besides.)

- Baking ingredients and techniques are different here. It took me 20 minutes to locate baking soda the other day at a major grocery store, doing so only after surrendering eventually and asking for help. There was just one tiny box, turned sideways, on a massive shelf otherwise containing at least 40 different types of salt. I've yet to find baking powder. No such thing as round cake tins anywhere I've looked. Just yesterday I located special flour that I understand should yield "normal" cookies, since the ordinary flour here is much finer and I've read will yield a pan of spread goop. The good news is that I have a full contingent of taste-testers in residence who won't turn their noses up at even the ugliest of dessert outcomes, so I'm not exactly worried!

- Car insurance history is important. Not necessarily claims history, mind you. Just proof of having had insurance. Our rate was cut by half (not chump change, by a long shot) by providing documentation of car insurance going back nearly 13 years. Of course this was easier said than done, and Jesse deserves huge kudos for even remembering our various insurers from year to year; we've shopped around and changed more than half a dozen times in that period! Lovable freak that he is, Jesse was able to dial the phone numbers from memory for two or three our providers. (Who does that?? ) But you can imagine the odd conversations: "So, I haven't been a customer of yours for a decade. Do you still have records from 2003? You can check? Great! Here's the thing..."  My contribution was translating the important bits of any letters or documents or whatever the companies emailed to us (how we love Google translate!). End of story: We're insured!

- Thinking of cars, certain items are legally required in every vehicle on the French roads. We are the proud owners of a bright yellow vest and a big orange reflective triangle. We haven't bought a breathalizer since we understand that while legally required, we can't actually be fined for not having one (the other two carry fines). So, non-drinking cheapskates that we are, we're crossing fingers on that one.

- Sometimes, even when you understand the words, you don't understand the meaning. I've corresponded with the director of the boys' schools to arrange a meeting this week before school starts on 2 September. I also asked for a list of school supplies, rumored to put fear into the bravest French mothers' hearts with their specificity, complexity, and length. He replied, and I translate: "I can not provide you with a list of specific supplies to date. I can do that on 1 September. The only thing expected for the first day is a complete kit." How helpful and reassuring, eh? What the heck goes in a "complete kit" while I wait for the specialized list? (I'm assuming a complete kit means something specific and is in addition to the school supplies we'll learn about on 1 September...? I have an email out to a French friend to bail me out on this one.)

- Don't bother trying to do anything between noon and 2. Most offices close down. The lunch break is sacred!

- Don't bother trying to do anything after 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.  Again, everything is closed. In fact, don't bother shopping near to closing time. A huge grocery store nearby that is utterly mobbled with people in the middle of the day is a ghost store by the last half hour. Fifteen minutes before closing I had my wrist angrily jerked at as an employee tried to pull down the curtain on the section of the dairy aisle where I was reaching for a bottle of milk! (Oh, and thinking of milk: It's hard to find fresh milk...just a few bottles in the major grocery stores. Everyone drinks UHT shelf stable stuff, which I didn't expect in a land known for its endless array of cheeses, butters, yogurts, etc.)

- Don't bother trying to do anything on Sunday. Once again, all shops are closed. Of course this one doesn't bother us except that, sadly, most churches are included on the "closed" list—seeing as most are just tourist attractions, not houses of worship.

- Always have change in your pocket, or you won't be able to get a shopping cart. The first time we went to the grocery store, our first evening here, we took ages simply to break a bill, get change, and obtain a cart. We were nearly in tears over the hilarity and feebleness of it. Boys going bananas, all of us utterly exhausted, just wanting to get some food in our empty kitchen and bellies, and...thirty minutes into the ordeal, tremendous! We'd secured a shopping cart! Yay for us!

There have been many more lessons learned but this is getting too long. I should add that I hope these don't come across as negative. We came in expecting every day to bring new differences to navigate and appreciate. We're taking ourselves and our days lightly (which isn't too hard with Jesse in the mix :). And of course it's hard to complain about anything when certain lessons involve, for instance, discovering something new and delicious at the boulangerie each day! 

Thouars after dark

Last night an event was staged not even 200 feet from our front door, out in the nearby church square. We missed the concert while waiting for the kiddos to go to sleep, but once they were well and truly out—yeesh, not until after 10 p.m. up in their cozy attic bedroom—Jesse and I snuck around the corner to see the ballet / dance / acrobatic / musical spectacle that followed. Yes, we dashed back a few times to be sure the boys remained safe and sound. It was wonderful! (although my calves ache today from spending the better part of an hour on my tiptoes trying to see over the crowd. This pic was taken with my arms stretched above me, the only keeper where I stayed still enough.  :)

After, we saw that the church itself was open and illuminated, so we peeked in for a second. 

And then we walked back the "long way" (taking an additional 3 minutes) to look over the street behind ours and some of the illuminated old buildings beyond that. 

A little different than a night walk around American Avenue back home! 

France! in ups and downs...

We've made it! Indeed, we've been here all week, and this update is badly overdue. The days have been full with getting settled, figuring things out, Jesse getting back to work; this is the first I've sat down with my computer for more than a few minutes. (Bizarre for me, rarely more than a few feet from my laptop...)

So, this week. What to say? Where to start? There have been lots of ups and downs. Roller coaster worthy ups and downs!


The first up and down was physical, of course. On Monday we were awake early and boarded a plane that went up in Southampton England and came back down in Nantes France an hour or so later. Everything went great, this time the luggage made it, barely had to do a thing at immigration. We picked up our rental car and headed east.

The next up and down came an hour later: up for the boys, down for me. Everyone was hungry as it was late afternoon and we had only eaten some snacks through the day. After much neck craning across many miles, the single place we could see from the highway to stop was (I wince to type it): McDonald's. Yep. Our very first, exciting, landmark stop in France? The first food to enter our mouths? Cheap American burgers and fries! Josiah and William were thrilled of course.  :)

Arriving to our new home Monday late afternoon was exciting. It's truly lovely. (I'll document with photos in future posts.) We all delighted in exploring the rooms and corners and cupboards. The boys were especially excited to find a "scary room," a dark little basement underneath a storage building. Of course with character and age and charm come squeaks, precious few electrical outlets, and dank spots, but the ups by far outweigh the downs!

Our first lunch, Tuesday, in the house's little courtyard.

Our town, Thouars, is a decent size but in a very rural area; few people speak English. We're proud to say that we've successfully—albeit slowly and with moments of utter bafflement—accomplished several things this week with our negligible French. So far on the phone I've only blurted out "Je suis désolé, au revoir" (I'm sorry, goodbye") and hung up on someone once—after a painful minute of neither of us having a clue what the other was saying.

How long until you think these two will be using baguettes as baseball bats?

On Tuesday morning we got up, dressed nicely, and headed as a family to the bank up the street. We had our passports and lots of documents and had pep-talked ourselves up to tackle the first task of opening a bank account. We marched in at 10:15 a.m. and...marched back out at 10:20. I mean, I guess we had been successful, in a manner of speaking; we had been given an appointment for later in the week. (At home, what functioning bank would tell patrons ready to plonk down money, "Eh...come back in a few days"? It would be a 5-minute process to be signed up and done!) Anyway, after that small downer, we had a major "up" as we continued along the street and visited our first proper boulangerie. No appointments or put-offs there! We toted home a big baguette (and some pain au chocolate, of course), smiling all the way.

I'm thrilled to say that a huuuuuge up came in the form of us purchasing a car. We devoted much time and anguish to it across Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The used car market in France is almost nonexistent, so pickin's are slim and prices are high, but a silver lining is that the nearby options were quickly inventoried. Most dealerships have 5 or 10 used vehicles for sale, most of them still relatively new and costly...maybe 1 or 2 in our price range. We didn't want to buy privately since there was little price difference and we knew we'd struggle to deal with the extensive paperwork without a dealer handling it. Anyway, to make a long story a tiny(?) bit shorter: Next Friday (assuming we figure out how to get a proof of residence document from the town hall next week and obtain car insurance, ha!) we'll be picking up our "new" 2008 Ford Fiesta, 100,000 miles, diesel, manual transmission, around $6000 (ouch...but one of the very cheapest available). It's super basic and, being diesel, sounds more like a truck than a tiny car, but hopefully it'll serve us well this coming year. Presumably we'll make back some of the cost when we off-load it next summer. We're pretty sure that Yves, our very nice and endlessly patient car dealer, has promised to replace the timing belt (Jesse noted it looked worn), fix the wonky passenger window, and do a few other things while the paperwork is being sorted. [Note that "timing belt" was not covered by Madame Turcotte in my high school French class...]  Yves offered a car for us to use in the meantime, since our airport rental had to go back within hours. His loaner is mighty far from being a luxury vehicle but we are so thankful for wheels. Yves made it clear that it was not a "rental" but a free loan, and added that it was a sign of goodwill of the French to the Americans for our help in World Wars I and II. Not that Jesse and I can take credit there!  :)  Anyway, I jumped into the welcome loaner and followed Jesse and the boys 120 km to return the rental in Nantes. Glad that driving stick came back without trouble!  :)

Let's see. Any other ups and downs? William was down for about 4 hours on Wednesday morning. He kept coming out in sweats and weeping that he needed to throw up, completely listless and needing to lie still to keep the nausea at bay. I tucked him in our master bedroom with a bowl, and Josiah and I kept him company when he wasn't dozing. I was sure we were in for a round of the stomach bug in the family, but around noon he perked up a bit. He wanted water. A bit later he ate some toast. Then he wanted plain yogurt and muesli. He never did throw up and has been right as rain ever since. Phew!

Poor kiddo. (But hooray for a dreamy bedroom! Not that William appreciates it like Mommy...  The home's owner is a Canadian artist; the huge gray cloud canvas, not well shown here, is her work. Beautiful paintings are in most rooms of the house.)

The most recent "down" happened yesterday. Down, literally. The teapot cozy here was really grubby, stained, soiled. I tossed it in the wash with a small load I going. When I opened the machine a few hours later to hang out the finished wash (no dryer here), I just about fell over. It looked like a bird had died in there. Yikes. Didn't occur to me that it might be a down cozy—but even if I had thought to check, what foul luck that it burst a seam during the wash. (Or should I say, fowl luck... :)  I've spent absolutely ages getting feathers out of the washer, out of the clothes, out of everything. The boys have helped. There are feathers outside the house, inside the house, everywhere. I think we'll be finding them for a long time to come...reminders of this first crazy week of ups and "downs"!

Ah, Badbury Rings

I don't think there's been a time I've come to England since infancy that hasn't included a picnic or walk 'round Badbury Rings. Archeologically, biologically, and historically it's fascinating—see here—but really I just find it incredibly nostalgic and relaxing and beautiful! And I've never known it to fail in the kite flying department. We had two kites in our suitcases (yes, only four proper cases for the year, and we decided to include two kites among the "essentials"), so they got their first airing on Monday morning at Badbury Rings. William spent far more time looking down at snails, grasshoppers, and butterflies, but I think the rest of us were pretty happy looking up at the hills, fields, and sky!

 

 You can see the big reel of string. We successfully paid out pretty much the entire thing, around 500 feet. The kite was a mere speck in the heavens! William wondered if it would reach the moon...

You can just see the dot of the kite in the sky.

Beautiful tracks cut through the trees at the very top and center of the rings. 

 

Walking along the top ring.

One of William's many beloved butterflies.

Cricket

No, not more creepy crawlies. We're talking about the sport.

Sunday afternoon—after church at Holtwood and a characteristically tremendous family dinner provided by Ann—we headed out to see Adam play cricket. He's part of a club that's been playing most summer weekends since the 1950s. They go in for a short game; it usually only takes 6 hours or so over a single day.  :)

Turns out the opposing team had a new player, an American guy with a great arm but who was decked out in whites that were much too wide and much too short, was wearing a pair of bizarre black trainers (sneakers) instead of white ones, and seemed to be receiving a hasty crash course in wickets, stumps, and overs before taking the field. Yep, the opponents showed up a man short so Jesse was in the game.

Always up for an adventure and of course loving all things sporty, he was not an unwilling recruit! And seriously, how could he say no to a game where everything halts every hour or two whilst folks bring cups and pitchers of chilled fruity beverages out to the field...a game that, at "half-time," involves all the players going into the clubhouse for a proper tea laid out with cakes and finger sandwiches and all the rest (the wives and children don't get a look-in)...a game where the zealous record keepers neatly penned "glorious" in the box designated for weather in the record book? (It was glorious, by the way.)

In any case, he made a good showing in the field for the first bunch of hours. But for the second half, when his team was batting, the game ended with a win before it got to the batters at the end of the line-up so he didn't get a turn in the crease (obviously it works nothing like baseball; there's no batting "rotation").

Meanwhile, the mommies (Danni and I) enjoyed visiting while the kiddos (Grace, Olivia, Josiah, and William) kept themselves happy and busy for hours and hours:

Making pine cone pictures for the mommies to guess. (This was a raccoon in progress.)

Playing their own cricket game.

(It was hard for our baseball loving boys to get the hang of holding the bat low and not throwing it after making contact!)

Playing on the real field while the daddies were in having their tea.

And playing make-believe that Grace was a self-proclaimed peasant/Amish/servant girl (??) while the other three were royalty. She was happily bossed around by them throughout the picnic dinner, fetching them everything they needed!

The location itself was very unassuming. Off the road behind a more modern hospital was this field with a rather decrepit, long building. Apparently it and several others on the property were built by Americans in WWII. Some, like this one, were now more like storage sheds/garages and hard to picture as a place for emergency medical care! Anyway, a track tucked just to the left of the building brought one out to the cricket field, behind the trees. 

Afterwards, after Jesse had given back his wide and short white trousers, he and Adam played a bit with the kids. Because obviously 2 to 8 p.m. hadn't provided quite enough cricket yet!

 

Creepy crawlies

On Saturday we enjoyed a day with the Gradys. The morning was spent at a creepy crawly bug exhibit in Bournemouth. It felt somehow notable that the two "big kids" could be relatively independent, reading most of the signage themselves.



We learned lots of fascinating (and often very unpleasant) buggy facts—but the best part was at the end, when the kids got to hold some very exotic creatures! Snails, millipedes, snakes...

Afterward, we took a walk along a bit of the Bournemouth seafront.


Back at the house in the afternoon, the kids had ice cream cones. This moment with Grace and Josiah reminded us of last time we were here, almost exactly three years ago. It's been so fun to see the two of them pick up their friendship!

August 2014:

August 2011: